Linda Hamilton has shopped at area Goodwill stores for years looking for bargains on second-hand goods and clothes.
But on Friday she was eager to get some brand new clothes at Goodwill's remodeled East Ridge store, which began selling only new merchandise under the Goodwill Home Store brand.
"It's always good to get new stuff and getting it at a good price is great," said Hamilton, one of nearly 100 shoppers who rushed into the new Home Store when the doors opened Friday morning in the South Terrace Shopping Center. "I've always liked shopping at Goodwill, but the new merchandise makes it even better."
Chattanooga Goodwill, which is known for selling donated, second-hand goods at its 15 stores in Southeast Tennessee and Northwest Georgia, is the first Goodwill in the South to launch the new merchandise store concept. It will buy the goods from manufacturers for resale.
"It's a new concept for a new year and new era for Goodwill," Chattanooga Goodwill President Dennis Brice told cheering shoppers at a grand opening celebration of the new store concept Friday. "And you should know that the dollars you spend, and the bargains you get, go to serve other people. That is a fantastic win-win story."
Brice and other Goodwill officials hope that adding new merchandise to their fare will draw more shoppers and sales to help the 92-year-old nonprofit agency, which uses profits from its store sales to help disabled and disadvantaged persons find work through assessments, counseling and direct employment.
Other Goodwill stores will continue to sell predominantly donated, second-hand merchandise. But Delwin Huggins, chief operating officer for Goodwill in Chattanooga, said about 10 percent of the merchandise displayed at other stores will include new items, starting this month.
Goodwill is among more than a half dozen Chattanooga charities that receive and resell donated clothing and merchandise, and some other nonprofits -- and even some for-profit businesses -- based in other cities have come into the Scenic City is recent years with donation boxes. In the competitive arena for second-hand sales, Huggins said new merchandise that local Goodwill buyers will purchase to sell in local Goodwill stores should help draw shoppers to Goodwill stores.
Huggins said "because of our low overhead" the new merchandise should still be priced at 20 to 30 percent below most other retailers, in most instances, and the nonprofit expects to generate more income from the sales for its operations.
About one fourth of the 550 employees for the Chattanooga Goodwill in its 23-county region are disabled or disadvantaged in some way and the proceeds from the store sales also support about 85 percent of Goodwill's projected $17 million budget in the Chattanooga area, Huggins said.
Kevin Beirne, director of development at Chattanooga Goodwill Industries, said the agency served, in some way, more than 10,000 persons with disabilities or other special needs in the region last year. To support the growing program amid more competition among second-hand merchandise resellers, the Chattanooga Goodwill is starting 2015 as one of only about a half dozen Goodwill agencies in the country to sell new merchandise.
"We have always served low-income to middle-class families looking for a bargain with our stores and we think this will position us to appeal to more middle -income folks wanting new merchandise but still looking for a good deal," Beirne said.
Goodwill has contracts with both the state of Tennessee and the state of Georgia, along with the Veterans Administration, for its training and work programs, including vocational evaluation, job placement, medical equipment support and other programs for disadvantaged persons.
But to support most of its operations, Brice said the Chattanooga non-profit relies primarily upon donated goods which it resells at its stores in Chattanooga, Cleveland, Athens, Dayton, Dunlap, Kimball, Manchester, McMinnville and Tullahoma, Tenn., as well as Lafayette, Ga.
The Chattanooga Goodwill plans to add its 16th store next month in Trenton, Ga., Brice said.
Contact Dave Flessner at dflessner@timesfreepress.com or at 757-6340.